A Charm of Feathers
by Lakritzwolf
Summary: Realising that going to England was a mistake, Elizabeth makes her way back to the Caribbean to find life. And to find... someone she denies she has gone to find. With the help of a charm... but of course, charms are just silly superstition. Aren't they?
1. Chapter 1

A rather short and rather fast-paced piece that I wrote all in one go. Pairing Jack/Elizabeth, as usual, it's a bit on the dark side but I hope I don't scare ye too much.

Elizabeth has tried to flee from everything after what happened, but she can't flee from herself. Realising that going to England has been a mistake, she makes her way back to the Caribbean, to find life. And to find... someone she tries to deny she has gone to find.

I don't own anything of Pirates, not even a random piece of merchandise.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, the world just isn't big enough.

No matter how far you flee, some things you will never be able to escape. No matter how far you flee, you will never leave them behind. For you can not escape yourself.  
And even leaving a world behind her, leaving everything she knew and loved behind her, trying to leave herself behind her, she found she couldn't flee from herself. No matter where she went, she would keep on haunting herself.

Maybe it had been just the thing to save her from going mad, leaving the Caribbean behind and going back to England. But sometimes, Elizabeth knew that it was precisely this that would, sooner or later, push her over the edge. Rather sooner than later. She had believed with leaving it all behind she would, at some point, be able to forget it all. To at least put it behind her. But it had been a delusion, a lie to herself. She could not forget.

She could not forget the hot days or humid nights. The cold Cambridge fog was driving her mad.

She could not forget the clear, blue waters. The North Sea she occasionally caught a glimpse of was grey and dull and forbidding.

And no matter how hard she tried, she could not forget the feeling of the rocking of a ship, the wind in her hair, the salt on her lips, and she could not, curse him and his very soul, forget him. The man who had saved her. The man whom she had killed. The man whom she so desperately tried to leave behind, but who so insistently refused to let go of her memory.

But was even more annoying was the sheer fact that she was thinking about him so much. She shouldn't be thinking of him. She should be thinking of her husband. The man she had married. The man she loved… she had loved so much… the man who was dead.  
He was dead. He was sailing the seas on a ship full of dead men, he was dead himself for he had no heart any more, so he was dead. And she… so she was a widow. Wasn't she? The man she had married was dead, so she was a widow.

Elizabeth angrily gripped the barrister before her, staring out into the park below her window. There it was again.  
She was _not_ a widow. Will would come back. He would come back to her, and they would rejoice in each other's company again. For one day. In slightly more than eight years. Hardly almost nine. He was just at sea. On a very long journey. Dead. But on a journey. And he would come back to her. Dead, but he would come back. Dead…

A shiver crept down her spine as she suddenly thought about the feeling of resting her head against his chest and hearing no heart beat inside. A dead man. Embracing a man with no beating heart.  
But he _had_ a heart, she kept telling herself angrily. He had a heart, and it was still beating. It was just… slightly… out of place.  
Namely, in a chest, buried somewhere on a Caribbean island, several hundred miles away right now. But still beating. Still beating for her.

„_It has always belonged to you."_

And it still did. With a slight shudder, she realized she couldn't help herself thinking that she would have preferred it were it still where it was supposed to be. In his chest. _In his body. _Not in some wooden crate buried somewhere on a sorry spit of land in the middle of nowhere.  
It scared her. And it scared her how much it did scare her. She shouldn't be scared of him. But she was, nonetheless.

Then, being freshly married, having witnessed him die, she was so bursting with feeling for him that it hadn't mattered. But as time had passed, and the feelings had calmed down and had been replaced by thoughts, she realised that a dead man was not what she wanted, precisely. She wanted life. Not death.

But life was forlorn to her. She had a dead man to keep watch for and there was no more place for her in the living world. She hadn't realised it before, hadn't wanted to, but now she could no longer deny it. Even with leaving everything behind, she could not leave herself behind. And thus, she had brought all her sorrow, regret and hate and fear with her, across the Atlantic Ocean, across hundreds of miles of sea.

There was no escape. No escape from her guilt, no escape from her fears, no escape from her sorrow and certainly no escape from her secret feelings she had so long tried to deny.  
She was still trying to deny.  
Because as time went by, the way she was supposed to feel was slowly and inevitably replaced by a way she should not feel.  
She longed. She longed for freedom. For the sea. For the wind. For the unexplored frontier, for the wilderness beyond, for everything her life right now was not.

And all this was represented in one single word. A word she didn't want to speak any more. A word she didn't even want to think any more. A word she shied away from as if it were a curse in a cathedral. But a word that nonetheless drew her towards it like the forbidden fruit of Eden. A fruit she had touched, if not tasted. And like Eve, she had brought damnation with it. And like Eve, she would suffer for it. And like Eve, she had been cast out of Paradise.

With only one difference: The man she had damned was still there.

And the word that was freedom was his name. She didn't ever want to think of him any more, but she couldn't stop breathing just like this, as impossibly as she couldn't stop herself thinking of him. Maybe she should stop shying away. Maybe she should face her feelings, stare them down, and thus master them.

Maybe she should just stop telling lies to herself.

Maybe she should just admit what a mess she had made of everything. How she had managed to loose everything. And everyone. Her father, James, Will… and Jack.

There. She had thought it. The word she never did want to think of again. Because it was a name. And in it, it carried everything she longed for, everything she had lost.  
„Jack…" Elizabeth gripped the barrister even harder and stared into the grey night before her. „I want life, Jack. Not death…"


	2. Chapter 2

Jack spun around, but behind him was just the emptiness of the helm. It was in the middle of the night, he was alone on deck, yet he could have sworn someone had said his name. Slowly he turned around again, hesitatingly closing his fingers around the spokes as he narrowed his eyes while staring ahead. Someone had…

„_Jack…"_

He let go of the wheel and drew his pistol cocking it slowly with pursed lips. Someone had called him… But there was no one there but himself. No one but his ship, the sea, the moon, the waves, he and his memories.  
His memories…  
He uncocked the weapon with an angry sigh before putting it back into his belt again. The voice calling his name had come from his own memories. It had been her voice.

Why could she not leave him in peace? She had left, after all. She had driven him insane from the first moment they had met in that she was, seemed, had been, so perfectly suited for him and had constantly refused to accept or even see it.

And he… he had let her drive him mad. He had let her use him, wind him up, tease him, kiss him… _Oh bugger, not that…  
_Kiss him…  
Slowly crossing his arms, he sauntered down the stairs and across the deck, stopping beside the mast. Slightly raising his chin, he imagined himself standing there, with her standing before him, watching the scene that had happened here, watching himself and her from his memories.

_Don't kiss her, mate, _he thought._ Slap her and be gone.  
_But of course he didn't slap her. Captain Jack Sparrow didn't slap a woman who was about to kiss him. That only happened the other way round.  
So he watched himself being kissed, returning the kiss all too eagerly, and being shackled to the mast.  
„_I'm not sorry",_ he heard Elizabeth say.  
"Ye're not, aye?", he asked darkly and to his surprise, the Elizabeth-imagination spun around to stare at him.  
„If ye're not sorry, luv, why do I keep on hearing ye call for me? Is it me own stupid imagination that makes me pine for the woman who scorned me after she had killed me?  
The Elizabeth-imagination stared at him with tears in her eyes_. „I want life, Jack. Not death…"_, she said, and vanished.

„Well", Jack said dryly after he had blinked a couple of times, looking at himself being shackled to the mast. „Got yerself into a heap of trouble there, mate."  
The shackled Jack grinned sheepishly. „Couldn't resist, mate."  
"Not that I don't know where ye come from, but god, I wish ye had."  
„Look who's talking", the shackled Jack sneered.  
„You know what'll happen, mate?", Jack snapped. „Ye're going to be ingested by a giant squid any minute",  
„And ye know what? I'm going nowhere you haven't already been, mate."

The worst bit was, he was right.

Well, naturally he was always right and him being him, even if it was another him, a memory of him, was thus always right, as well. And being right was never a wrong thing, but in this case, he wouldn't have minded being wrong. Wouldn't have minded himself, his other self, being wrong. And since it was his other self, and not him, not the him-self of this minute and reality, that meant that he was right anyway, and the other was…  
„Jack? Whom are ye talking to?"  
Jack spun around to give Gibbs a long stare under narrowed brows, his chin raised. „I was just thinking aloud, Master Gibbs", he said and sauntered across the deck, leaving the helm to Gibbs.

He locked the door of his cabin with an angry sigh. Freeing himself of his effects and dropping them wherever he just happened to stand, he made his way into the bedroom and flopped heavily down on to his cot. Why couldn't he be satisfied? Why pine for things he couldn't have and didn't even really want? Not necessarily. Not really. Just maybe, well yes, maybe he did want her. But not _that_ much. _Not at all that much._

He had gotten his ship back, after all, after trading it for the map to Barbossa without telling the mutinous bastard that the map was as worthless as a used handkerchief, due to the fact that where the map showed the island to be, in reality a barren rock with a small volcano in the middle could be found.

Well, so much for that dream. Either the map was wrong, or reality was wrong, but since he was in this reality (or seemed to be, at least), chances were that the map was wrong. Not that he hadn't told him that. Well, he hadn't, but he had hinted that he thought the map might be a tad bit inaccurate. Barbossa had laughed at him and blamed his inability to find the priced artefact on his poor navigational skills and seamanship. Jack had smiled sweetly and replied nothing as he had been busy with caressing the wheel of his ship.

Grimacing at the memories of Barbossa, Jack picked up a bottle that was standing beside his bed and contemplated it. Rum. Just rum. And it was even almost full. It was definitely not half empty yet. He uncorked it. No, definitely more than half empty.

_Now,_ it was half empty. Or half full. With a blissful smile, Jack kicked off his boots and stretched out on the cot. Half empty, more likely, since the bottle now was on its way to being empty, and he was already half way there. Half empty.

So what would he do tomorrow? What was there to do?  
Plundering, looting, pillaging, wenching…  
He could plunder Nassau. _Nah, done that already.  
_He could plunder Port Royal. _And be blown to pieces before I can say Jolly Roger if there's a navy ship in port.  
_He could plunder a merchant. _Have to find one first. Sea's a damn big place.  
_He could go to Tortuga. Find a nice tavern, find some wenches… his men would like that. Yes, they would go to Tortuga. Maybe he could buy a map. A new map.  
Maybe he could pick up a few ladies. Make himself feel like the king of the world again.

But suddenly, there were these honey-coloured eyes again, staring at him in unmasked disgust.  
"And what business of yours is that, darling?", he said into the empty air. „Ye're not even here. I know ye left for England. None of yer business where I drop me anchor." He brought the bottle to his lips after salutating to her vanishing image, only to find it empty.  
„Oh bugger", he slurred with a groan. „Why's the rum always gone even when ye're only present in my own mind? Care to explain that?"

But she was gone, and likely wouldn't have explained it, anyway. She wasn't the explaining sort. Well, neither was he. _Peas in a pod. _

He stared out of the window. _Birds of a feather._ But he had never said that to her…


	3. Chapter 3

Snowflakes whirled around her, glittering in the cold and crisp air like crystals, like shards of mother-of-pearl drifting in the wind.  
She hadn't felt snow on her skin since she had been eight years old, and she danced around in a circle, catching the snowflakes on her skin where they touched her in a tiny soft cold kiss and then melted into a tear for something beautiful irretrievably lost.

She stopped spinning and looked around, blinking snowflakes from her lashes. Something had moved… Something had fallen down beside her that was no snowflake. Something small and brown…  
She went down into a crouch and touched it. It was a bird, a small brown sparrow, and it fluttered its little wings yet couldn't fly any more. Feeling her heart go out for the little creature, she picked up bird the and carefully closed her hands around it, carrying it inside.

In her room, she found a small golden cage where she put the sparrow, gently setting it down. She closed the door and watched it awake to live again in the warmth. It twirped and hopped, and she was happy to see it would survive.

But now it was time for the ball, and she had to dress. She put on a long-sleeved dress, sparkling white and decorated with white feathers, swan's feathers, at the sleeves and around the seams. She spun around again, making the dress billow around her. It was the most beautiful item of clothing she had ever seen. Smiling, she put on the white mask, likewise decorated with white feathers, and went downstairs into the ballroom.

Music was playing already, and she could see people dance, could hear people laugh, but all fell silent when she descended the stairs. All of them looked at her, all those masked faces looked up at her, admiring her in her beauty. Smiling and moving with as much grace as a swan on a lake, she parted the crowds of colourful masks and made her way to the dance floor.

She did not even have to wait. Young men rallied around her, all trying to get the honour of the first dance. But the night was young, and she could dance with all of them. And she did. She danced and danced, looking into endless pairs of eyes watching her through colourful masks. Green eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes, grey eyes. And all were watching her, admiring her, telling her how beautiful she was.

All the dancing made her tired. And thirsty. She excused herself because she needed something to drink and went across the room to the table where crystalline glasses were lined up filled with wines and spirits to enable everyone to drink to their heart's content. She chose a glass of white wine and drank a sip before turning around to look at the dancers again.

They twirled around, but a group of young men were still watching her, waiting for her to return. She brought the glass to her lips with a smile as someone bumped into her and made her spill the wine.

It was blood red.

She gagged, staring at the glass. The liquid in the glass had turned to blood, and the blood was dripping down her hands and chin. She stared at the glass and then she saw it: The sparrow. It was in her glass, dead, his wings broken, and it was his blood that was running down her fingers, down her chin, staining her white dress in dark red streaks. She screamed and dropped the glass, but the bloodstains on her dress even grew, her hands were dripping with blood, and she wrenched the mask from her face only to find it drenched in blood as well.

Elizabeth awoke with a scream, sitting bolt upright in her bed with a gasp. Taking a few deep breaths, she managed to calm herself down enough to look at her hands.  
Nothing. No blood.  
She didn't have the blood of a sparrow on her hands. Her hands were clean… _figuratively speaking…_ Or rather, not figuratively speaking. She swallowed and let herself fall back into the bed.

„_My hands are clean in this matter… figuratively speaking…"_

She had hated him for that. And she had almost laughed, trying to remain hateful.  
Yet… had her hands ever been clean, after what she had done? Even figuratively speaking?

But the twirping of the sparrow was still resounding in her head, and suddenly she realised that this was because she did indeed hear a sparrow twit. In her room.  
She shot out of the bed and looked around, and then she found it, tied up in a corner of the curtain. It must have flown into her room, feeling nosy, and then had got caught in the billowing curtains before the window.

„Poor thing… don't be afraid", she whispered as she knelt down and slowly and carefully closed her hands around the bird. As soon as she blocked out the light, the bird calmed down and stopped jerking, and she was able to get his tiny claws out of the netting of the curtain. Her hands still closed around the sparrow, she straightened up and held her arms out of the window.

„Fly free", she whispered, blinking tears out of her eyes. „Fly free, little sparrow." Then she opened her hands and it took the bird only a couple of seconds to recover his wits again and spread his little wings. It was gone out of sight within seconds, twirping a last note at her as if to say thank you. Elizabeth stared after it into the foggy dawn with tears in her eyes and had to force herself to turn around again, realising as she did so that in its attempts to free itself, the sparrow had lost a couple of small brown feathers. Elizabeth picked them up, six altogether, and sat down on her bed, closing her hands around them.

_Birds of a feather…_

She looked up, but there was, of course, no one there. She was alone in her room. She had imagined that voice. He had never said that to her.

She was going mad. The last dream today had told her as much. She was going mad, her feelings of longing paired with her feelings of guilt were finally getting the better of her. She felt her longing for two men and felt guilt for doing so because it should be only one of them she felt for. One was alive and one wasn't, but both were so far out of her reach that both might as well have been dead.

She put down the feathers on her pillow and covered them with the blanket to keep them from being blown away, then she got dressed and stole outside to take a walk in the park. Her aunt didn't like it when she did this, walk around alone, but Elizabeth had never been known for her obedience.

She stopped when she reached the small lake in the middle of the park, watching her breath escape her lips in long, foggy huffs into the cold November air. Shards of fog drifted across the surface of the lake, and in the distance, almost hidden by the fog, she could make out the outlines of the swans that resided there.

Following a sudden impulse, she walked down to the shore and lowered her eyes to the ground in searching. She picked up six small, white feathers and, closing her hand around them like a bunch of flowers, she walked back to the house, luckily, this time unobserved by the stern eyes of her aunt who was so concerned about her reputation. And her manners.

After sitting down on her bed again, she took out the sparrow feathers and looked at them. Smiling to herself she brought the two bunches of feathers together, the small brown ones and the larger white ones, and made a little bouquet out of them. It almost sounded like a charm. Six feathers of a swan and six feathers of a sparrow.  
„Six feathers of a swan and six feathers of a sparrow", she whispered as she ripped out a couple of her hairs and tied them together. „Take me where I need to go."  
Then she cast a glance out of the window. It was still not completely light outside, and her mind was made up quickly, all of a sudden. As if the thought had always been there and only had to be awoken.

She could go mad, or she could try and do something about it. Coming to England had been a mistake, and the only thing she could do about it was to leave again.

She quickly changed her clothing, with a lot of skill and luck she had managed to keep a set of man's clothing secret from her aunt and her servants.

As she was about to leave the room, an idea struck her that wasn't very nice, that was very ungrateful towards her aunt, but that would doubtlessly clear up matters behind her. She grabbed a dress and rolled it up into a bunch, stowed it away under her cloak and took it with her as she left the house silently, before the true dawn had broken and the household would awake.

Strangely elated, she walked quickly down the road towards the river, following its winding pathway through foggy fields and meadows until she reached the old forest. Here, she tore off a sleeve off the dress, then took out her knife and cut her arm with gritted teeth.

Smearing some of the blood onto the torn sleeve, she send a silent apology to her aunt who had so graciously taken care of her to forgive her would she ever learn the truth; but now, she needed to get away, and she needed to do so without the danger of being followed. She wedged the bloodstained sleeve into the twigs of a shrub near the river, then tore the rest of the dress into shreds and spread those around the little clearing.

Satisfied with the effect, she made her way towards the river again, following it's path down towards the coast. It would eventually hit the road south, and there, in London, she might find a way to get onto a ship going to the new world.

Feeling elated with herself and her plan, Elizabeth walked briskly down the path that ran alongside the river, singing softly under her breath. But even as she felt silly for doing so, she still had to smile at her own peace of mind, now that she had left the security and safety of a home behind again. Again. She had never been so relieved and happy since she had set foot upon english soil. She had no idea what would happen, how she was going to manage, if she ever would reach the Caribbean again at all. But strangely enough, she didn't care.

„_Yo ho ho, it's pirate's life for me…"_

Maybe not. Most _certainly_ not. Absolutely no pirate's life… but life, nonetheless.


	4. Chapter 4

Getting aboard a ship had been ridiculously easy. Being on board a ship, however, was a tad bit more difficult. Posing for a boy was easy enough, as well, while being a boy was hard work, literally and non-literally. Her hands were not used to hard work, and Elizabeth heard constant jokes about her soft and girlish skin.

But so far, no one had suspected a thing. She had scratched her bum, picked her nose, spat over board and drunk like a fish (and puked her guts out, as well). By now, her skin was tanned, her hair was bleached by the sun to a shade of pale gold and her hands were calloused, her nails broken. She looked, almost every inch, a sailor boy.

And all the time, she had worn the little charm between her tightly bound breasts. She kept chanting, every single night and feeling not a little silly for it, the words that had sprung to her mind as she had made it.  
„Six feathers of a sparrow and six feathers of a swan. Take me where I need to go."  
Would it work? She knew it was only stupid superstition. No more. Stupid superstition, and a couple of feathers couldn't do any magic. Yet she kept chanting it like a bedtime prayer, not really knowing why.

The ship she was on was bound for Port Royal. She had almost howled with triumph as she had realised it when she had looked for a ship into the new world. By now, they were leaving the north Atlantic and she knew that it would be only a matter of days when she would feel the caribbean winds on her face again. She still didn't know what to do with herself once she was there. But she had every confidence that a solution would present itself.

x x x x x x x x

„They're trying to flee! They've seen us!" Gibbs yelled as he hurried across the deck, but Jack had seen their manoeuvre and was already turning the wheel. This was the third ship in a couple of days that was giving them the slip, but this time, Jack had no intention of letting it happen. He was frustrated, and worse, his crew was frustrated. Provisions were running low, which meant spirits were running low, so they had to make a catch sooner or later. Rather sooner than later, because without a proper catch, there would be no new provisions.

The sail at the horizon grew, and Jack realised with a satisfied grin that the Pearl was gaining on them swiftly. Their hold was empty, and the sluggish movements of the other ship suggested that their hull was filled to the brim.  
„Hoist the colours!", Jack yelled, and watched with a smirk and glittering eyes as the Jolly Roger caught the wind on the topmast.

Yes, life was good. Suddenly. Had ever been. He had just forgotten. Life was good. Now. Again. It had taken him almost two years, but he was convinced that now, finally, he was over it. Why on earth, or on sea, for that matter, had he let his feelings, his memories, get the better of him for so long? What was the point? He couldn't have her, he would have someone else. A lot of someones, preferably. Why pine for one women if there were still so many unexplored skirts in so many harbours?

The merchantman had now turned and was obviously trying to stand her ground in the fight. The latches opened and Jack narrowed his eyes, then turned the wheel again to make the Pearl lean sideways. A salve of cannonballs fell useless behind her hull into the waves.

_There's a lot of skirts unexplored, but what ye really want to explore is a pair of breeches, ain't?  
_Oh shut up. I'm not that kind of man, and if ye're me, or a part of me, than ye should perfectly well know that.  
_I wasn't talking about any breeches. It's her breeches ye want to explore. Ye've never_ _removed a pair of breeches before lovemaking.  
_I could ask one of the whores to put one on.  
_Ye're pathetic.  
_I'm…  
„Jack!"  
„It's Captain Jack", he muttered, then paled as he realised that it had been that voice again. Would she never let him be? Not even in a fight? Pulling his sabre with one hand and his pistol with the other, he looked around but there was, as usual, no one.

„Jack Sparrow!" But there was, this time. A sailor who was definitely not a part of his crew was standing on the deck of the Pearl. On his ship! Jack cocked the pistol. „It's Captain Jack Sparrow!", he yelled and fired.  
"JACK!" She went down with a scream, and only then did he realise that it was, indeed, a female voice. A woman!  
Jack dropped the pistol. He had shot a woman!  
_Oh bugger, why was there a woman on the other ship, why a woman… _

His heart skipped a beat as he reached the mast and fell to his knees beside the bleeding form. A woman in breeches. A woman as a sailor…_This must be a bad dream, it's all a dream, a nightmare…_He gingerly touched her arm. „Elizabeth?"  
She opened his eyes and his soul froze over. It was Elizabeth. He had shot Elizabeth. He had killed her, he had shot her, and she was bleeding her life out on the planks of his ship, below the main mast. Where she had killed him. And now he had killed her.  
_Oh no, no, no, I didn't want to kill her. Not her, not me… _

A part of his brain had stopped working, but another part was taking over and giving orders to his body while the other part of his brain stood there and watched. He ripped a sleeve of her shirt and pressed it onto the bullet hole in her shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding. She stared up at him and he grimaced in desperation.  
"I didn't mean to shoot ye, luv, I didn't recognise ye…"  
„Jack", she muttered, and it sounded so weak. She was bleeding to death….and yet she smiled. „I found you…"  
"For what good it did ye", he muttered, still pressing the wadded cloth onto the wound. It was soaked by now.

He tugged at her shirt and narrowed his eyes as he spotted something white. He pulled out the charm that she wore on a leather string around her neck and stared at it, paling even more. Feathers. Six white ones and six small brown ones. Feathers… Could that be? _She didn't, no, bugger, bugger that, she didn't… she hasn't…  
_But it was there in his hands, a charm, or something much like it. White feathers? Swan's feathers? And the brown ones… sparrow.  
_Birds of a …no!  
_He didn't know, there was no way of knowing, but there was no doubt that the brown ones were feathers of a sparrow. She wore… six feathers of a sparrow and six feathers of a swan around her neck. _God, Lizzie, no, why did ye have to do that…why did ye come, why didn't ye stay where it's safe…_

A part of Jack's mind dimly registered that the fighting was still going on around them, and maybe he'd best carry her below, put her in a bed, and see if there was something he could do, or someone could do…  
So he gathered her up into his arms and made his way across the deck. A bullet hit the main mast and ricocheted off, and Jack staggered at the sudden stab of pain. The stray bullet had hit him between his ribs.

Suddenly his vision went dark, and try as he might, as he gasped for air, he couldn't breathe anymore. He staggered a few steps forward before stumbling into the railing, but due to his fading senses, he couldn't keep his balance and reeled over.

His last conscious thought as the waves closed around him and the water dragged him down was the he must hold on to her. _Hold on… hold on…_

x x x x x x x x

The last thing she remembered was Jack picking her up, and the first thing she realised as light began to fill her vision again was wood under her. Planks.  
"Elizabeth…"  
She knew that voice…  
„Elizabeth Turner…"  
She _knew_ that voice… and something as cold as ice filled her soul as she opened her eyes with a gasp.  
"Elizabeth Turner. Tell me, do you fear death?"


	5. Chapter 5

„Elizabeth Turner. Tell me, do you fear death?"  
„Will…" What was _he_ doing here? What was _she_ doing here? She remembered the bullet… Jack had accidentally shot her. She had passed out, and now… And now she was…  
„Elizabeth Turner", he said again. „Do you fear death?"  
She felt unable to answer. Something was decidedly wrong, about her, about him, about this whole situation…_Of course something is wrong,_ she scolded herself. _You're dead. You're on the Flying Dutchman. And Will is asking you…_

He was asking her _the_ question.

She realised she had still not quite come to grips with the fact that she was dead. Did she fear death? And if so… and if not… Did she? Will was still staring at her, and he was waiting for an answer. She tried to smile at him, her Will, her husband, the man she had married, the man she had lost… she tried to smile… and he didn't smile back. He stared at her with eyes that were cold and… angry? What had she done?

„Will…", she managed. „I missed you so…"  
"Did you?" His voice was cold and flat, distant, and frightening. „Then why do I find you here? Why do I find you here with him?"  
„Him?" She slowly turned her head, following the direction of his gaze and saw… Jack standing there, arms crossed. Still dripping.  
„Jack", she gasped. „Are you dead as well?"  
„Seems like", he said with a shrug. „If it wasn't the bullet between the ribs, it was most definitely the several thousand gallons of seawater after I fell overboard."

Elizabeth swallowed and turned her gaze back to Will. And suddenly she realised what was so disturbing about him. On the sides of his neck where three slabs of flesh moving, three gashes on each side that were opening and closing with each breath he took. They looked like… _gills_…  
The gills of a shark, to be precise. She swallowed again.  
"Will… I…"  
"What have you done?", he asked her, his voice still flat, his eyes still cold. „What have you done? Why did you do this to me?"  
„I didn't do anything!", Elizabeth wailed, mortified with fear. „I didn't do anything! I just wanted to live!"  
„With him?" It was more a snarl than anything else and Elizabeth cringed.  
"No! I wanted to live with you, but I couldn't! I wanted to be with you, but I couldn't! I couldn't live like that! I didn't want to be dead as well! I wanted to live! I wanted to go back to sea!" She sobbed and wiped her face. „Will, I missed you, but I…"

"I understand", he said coldly. „I do understand. You went to find him, to enjoy your life, and leave me behind. Forget me, and the misery I brought you. I totally understand:"  
"NO!" Elizabeth wrung her hands and reached out to touch him. „I didn't want to forget you! I wanted…" She fell silent with a horrified gasp as he suddenly straightened up and she realised that the grey cloak he had wrapped around him… was no cloak.

The wings of a sting ray extended from his shoulders on the back of his arms to his wrists, and down to his hips. He wasn't wearing a shirt anymore, and the whole of his skin was suddenly dark grey. The gills flickered again.

She stared at him, unable to move, unable to breathe, and unable to take her eyes of him. Will had turned into a creature much like Davy Jones, a chimera half man, half ray, and it was her fault. Her fault… because she had not stayed where she was supposed to be. _My fault…_

Clenching her hands together, she fell forward to her knees, holding her hands before her chin. „Will", she whispered. „Will, I missed you so. But you were dead. You were dead, and gone, and I couldn't live! I couldn't live! I wanted to live, please, believe me, I only wanted to live. I never meant to betray you. I never betrayed you! I just wanted to be at sea! I never went looking for Jack! It was… sheer chance…." She broke off as he went down into a crouch before her, his wings spread out behind him like the cloak they so gruesomely resembled.

„You didn't", he said. „You didn't look for him?"  
„No", she whispered. „I didn't look for him. I thought about him, but I didn't look for him. He hates me, Will. I killed him."  
Will slowly turned his head to look at Jack, who went into a defensive stance, extending his hands before him. „I attacked a merchant. She was on board. I had no idea. I shot a sailor… and I didn't recognise her before it was too late. Was me who killed her, but here I never meant to. I didn't kill her on purpose…" He broke off, pursing his lips, as if trying to figure out if Will would try to kill him again and if you actually could kill someone twice. The way he looked, it seemed he wouldn't necessarily want to try it out.

Will slowly looked from Jack to Elizabeth, back to Jack, and back to her again. „You wanted life."  
She didn't know what to say.  
„Life, and I am not part of life anymore. I am not part of your life." He suddenly sounded very tired.  
"Will…"  
„You have not answered my question, Elizabeth. Do you fear death?"  
Did she? She did. She knew she did. But to say yes would mean to stay. With him. And while she should want to be with him, the thought scared her even more.  
„I do", she said. „But not as much as I fear you."

He didn't even blink. He stared at her, then slowly got up and turned around, folding his wings around him again like a cloak. Elizabeth shuddered.

"I am dead", he said after a while in a flat and toneless voice. „I am dead, by god, I don't have a heart anymore. I am dead, you saw me die, and even though you married me, you are a widow now. That's what you are, a widow." He turned around again. „A widow. You're not bound to me anymore. You're free to go."  
"I'm dead as well, William", was all she could say. It sounded hollow, and maybe that was because she was. She felt hollow. Hearing him speak out her darkest secret thoughts was killing her again.

„Elizabeth", Will said darkly and with an agonizingly slow movement, he reached out and tugged at the leather string around her neck, staring at the little charm for endless moments. „Do you know what Jack said as an answer to my question?"  
She shook her head mutely, petrified with fear, by the way he looked at the charm hanging around her neck.

"He said the same as you. Exactly the same. The same words!!" He had almost roared the last sentence, and his fury made Elizabeth cringe. „He said he fears death, but not as much as he fears me! Why did I never see how much alike you truly are?"  
„Will…", her voice broke, and her vision blurred through her tears. „Will, I never…  
„You did!", he snarled. „You kissed him!"  
"But that was…"  
"Aye." His voice was flat again. „You tricked him. Because you are like him."  
„I…"  
„Stop lying", Will said. He dropped the charm and looked at it again, hanging between her breast, and back at her face. „It's all over now. I am dead, you are dead, he is dead. Stop lying, for your own sake if not for mine. Do you want to be with him?"

Her heart skipped a beat and she almost gagged. „That is out of question, I thought, you just said…"  
"I know what I said. Do you want to be with him?"  
„I…"  
"Do not lie. For if you wanted to be with me, your answer to my first question would have been different. Wouldn't it, Elizabeth?" He stared at her intensely. „Do you want to be with him?"  
Elizabeth stared into his eyes, the eyes she had so loved, the eyes she had so missed, the eyes that now, held only sorrow and fear. She shook her head, but try as she might, she couldn't speak something other than the plain truth. „Forgive me, Will. Yes, I do." She couldn't go with him. For he was death. And she didn't want death. She wanted life.

And even if the both of them were dead now, true death was more part of life than this un-life, this un-death that the crew of the Flying Dutchman were trapped in. She couldn't. She just couldn't. She laboured to her feet and walked over to Jack. „I'm sorry I killed you", she said, her voice cracked with fear and pain. „It serves me right that you killed me, even if it was an accident."  
Jack looked her over with a furrowed brow. „Well, at least we can say we're square now, luv."


	6. Chapter 6

"Elizabeth." Will walked over to them, wings billowing behind him. It was a sight that actually made Elizabeth relieved she was dead, for if she had been alive, this was what would haunt her in nightmares for the rest of her life.  
„Do you want to go with him, wherever he goes?"  
"Aye", she said, straightening up. She was afraid of the other side, but not as afraid as she was of him.  
„Do you want to stay with him?"  
„I do."  
"Do you want him?"

That brought her short. She stared at Jack who waggled his eyebrows and shrugged with a grin. „Ye can admit it, luv. It's Captain Jack Sparrow we're talking about."  
„And you're dead. Same as me." She shook her head, but somehow, his absolutely scuffproof attitude made things easier to bear. „I do", she said and slipper her arm through his.  
"You do", Jack grinned, then his face fell apart in a mask of horrified astonishment. „You do?", he asked her as he stared down at her.  
„Jack", Will said and he looked up.  
„What is it, mate?"  
"Do you want her?"  
„I…" he stared down uncomfortably at Elizabeth who, in turn, looked at him in mild interest.

Did he? He most certainly did. _Had_. But what was something like that worth in the face of death? Especially if death came in the form of a furious and bereaved husband? Well, she was the bereaved one, since he had died first, but now she was dead, so he was bereaved as well, but he was dead already, and could a dead man be a widower? Or a dead woman? If both were dead, how could one of them be widowed, since being widowed meant being left behind, and…

„Jack? I'm waiting."  
„I do." Jack blinked. Had he rally said that?  
Well, he did. _Had_. He had wanted her when they both had still been alive. When he had been alive, at least. But now he was dead, and so was she, so maybe there was really no need to lie anymore. At least now, there would be no dire consequences, no matter if he lied or spoke the truth, so he might as well be honest. In the face of death. In the face of…

„I give you to each other", Will said. Jack and Elizabeth stared at each other and both suddenly increased the grip on each other's arm. Then they slowly looked back at Will again.  
„By the power bestowed upon me as the captain of this ship, I declare you husband and wife, lawfully married before witnesses, since you both declared you want each other."  
"Waitwaitwaitwait hold it a moment", Jack said, slipping his arm out of hers. „Whadya mean with…" He was brought short when Will extended one arm.  
„There's an island. Leave my ship now. Go. Forget me. Both of you. Go."  
Jack blinked. „I thought we were…"  
"I am the ferryman", Will said darkly. „It is me who faces _Her_ over my decision where to put you ashore."  
"Will…"  
He looked at Elizabeth. „I loved you. But I am dead. A dead man can not love. But for the memory of the love I bore for you, I let you go. Go with him and live. Go. Now."

She took another step forward and rested her hand on his chest, where his heart should be. Tears were streaming down her face as she leaned forward. „I loved you, Will. I missed you, and I still do. I wish…"  
"Some wishes are futile", Will said, his voice suddenly gentle again. „I never wanted to cause you grief."

As an answer, Elizabeth leaned forward and met his lips with hers, gently, a soft brushing of her skin on his, but as she leaned back, his skin was, all of a sudden, a normal colour again and the wings were gone. As were the gills. He stared down at himself, at his hands, and slowly back at her with widening eyes. „Go", he said, his voice hoarse. „Go now."

"Farewell", she whispered and walked a few steps back. „Farewell."  
"Farewell, Elizabeth", he said. „You deserve a happy life."  
"So do you."  
"My life is over."  
"But so is mine…"  
"No. It has just begun."

Opening her mouth to reply, she found there was nothing to say to that so she took another step back, bumping into Jack who laid his hands on her shoulders. „Let's go, luv, before he changes his mind." But before they jumped the railing, he turned around again. „Thanks", he said. „Wish I could do something for ye in return."  
"You can", he said. „But I wonder if you're man enough to find out. I will find the Black Pearl and send them this way."

Jack narrowed his eyes and was about to reply something, but then thought better of it. He turned around again and jumped, but this time, the waters that closed above him gave him free again and he surfaced, heading for the shore before him. Beside him, he saw Elizabeth trying to keep up with his pace and he slowed down a little so she could reach his side.

x x x x x x x x

The Flying Dutchman had disappeared when they dragged themselves ashore, and they staggered towards the shadow of a few palm trees and collapsed there. It had been a fair distance to swim, and they both were exhausted.

As they were sitting there, their back to the tree, shoulders touching, Jack lifted up his hands and contemplated his fingers. Pursing his lips, he removed a ring from the little finger of his left hand and took her right hand in his.  
"What are you doing?", she asked with a frown and pulled her hand away. He grinned and took it again.  
„I thought we were married now, luv."  
She narrowed her eyes. „It's not legal until it's consummated, you know."  
"Well", he said brightly. „That can be arranged easily, darling."  
She gave him another cold stare, but still, the expected slap failed to come.

The more was he surprised when she leaned suddenly over, her face suddenly an inch apart.  
„I don't love you."  
He tried not to grin. „Of course ye don't. I'm a insufferable pirate with a low standard of personal hygiene and the habit of vile drinks. As ye said."  
„And you don't love me."  
„Wouldn't dream of it. Ye've killed me, after all. Betrayed me in the meanest possible way."  
„Then why would you want me to wear your ring?"

„Now that was a good question." He leaned his head back against the trunk and tried to think. It became difficult, however, as she started to play with the braids of his beard. „Maybe I just want to gain your trust and take advantage of you?"  
„Take advantage of me?"  
„I'm a pirate, darling."  
„And you would want to?"  
"Well…"  
"After all I have done to you?"  
He grinned brightly. „Darling, there's a lot of things you _haven't_ done to me yet, and I must say with a few of them I'd really be all too happy to try them out."

She lowered her lids, but as he was about to say something else, she tugged at his beard, and since he didn't particularly care for having his beard torn off he followed the tug and met her lips on the way. Thinking became difficult then. And absolutely unnecessary a while after that.

x x x x x x x x

„Jack?" she said, resting her head against his bare shoulder. She traced the lines of one of his tattoos with her forefinger, and the sensation of her soft touch made him feel ticklish. He cleared his throat. „What is it, luv?"  
She stared at the golden ring with the emerald on her right hand, then slowly picked up the charm that still hung around her neck, twirling it round between her fingers. "I don't love you."  
He grinned and closed his arms around her, trailing his hands down her naked back. „Keep telling yourself that, darling."


End file.
